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Monday, June 11, 2012

A five-million dollar
Trust awaits Luc Deveraux on his thirtieth birthday. All he has to be
is a settled family man by then. So he told a little lie and made up a
wife and child and thought he'd found an easy way out. Now, however,
his grandfather is ill and asking for his grandson to come home—with his
family. A chance meeting with penniless widow Julie Richmond ends in a
quick marriage, which will finish in an even quicker divorce when Luc
gets his money. The only problem is Luc's falling in love with his
pseudo-wife and her little daughter and wants to keep them in his life.

When
Luc returns to his grandfather's Louisiana plantation, he doesn't
expect Julie to be the catalyst, which will bring hidden hatred and
desires into the open, and subject them all to danger. Waiting for them
at San Souci is the younger brother with whom Luc's been feuding for
eighteen years, and the one woman he's never been able to get out of his
life—Clarice, a jilted ex-girlfriend who's determined to win him back,
though she's now his brother's wife...she isn't going to let a little
thing like a wife and child stop her from getting what she wants.

Reviewer: Dolce Amore
A desperate, insane act. In need of a wife and child fast because of the
threat of disinheritance, Luc (Lucifer) Deveraux invents ones! In this
contemporary novel, Luc's grandfather will disinherit him and he will
lose the money his father left him in his will if he's found out. When
he almost loses all hope, he finds Guiletta Richmond, aka Julie, and her
daughter, Merry. It is a fabulous coincidence that her name and the
daughter’s are the ones he invented for his wife and daughter! Happier
still that she agrees to his bargain: be his wife and he will give her
money enough to raise her daughter.

Julie needs money
desperately. Her husband has died a short time ago and what little
insurance money there was paid for her his funeral expenses. Shortly
after that a shake-up where she worked lost her her job. In order to
take care of her young daughter, she's been forced to sell her house,
her car and her furniture. They're now destitute, living in an old brick
apartment house and hungry and likely to remain so.

When Luc
sees them, she is in a shop being told she can no longer buy things on
credit. Luc offers the small child a donut and some milk while Julie is
trying to bargain with the manager for groceries, pleading that she will
pay him soon if he'll only provide them with some groceries now. But
the manager will lose his job if he extends her more credit so he
rejects her pleas. When she turns to look at her daughter, she sees her
with the donut and milk Luc bought her and insists she pay Luc for them,
with almost the last of her money.

Luc follows her home,
discovering her apartment and knocks at her door, sure that the solution
to both their problems is to marry, but because of a misunderstanding,
Julie thinks he's talking sex and not marriage. She is alarmed by what
he proffers and he leaves, giving her the name of his hotel and room
number in case she changes her mind. She frets that she probably should
have been flattered by his proposal but she feels she's not that
desperate. Not yet. She decides to meet him the next morning
leaving her daughter with her young black neighbor who is filled with
advice about the liaison:

"Now, remember. You get that money in yo' han' while he's still got his
pants on!" "An' if he starts anything weird—if he pulls out a set o'
han'cuffs or wants you to whup him—anything—you jes' grab the money and
beat it out o' there as fast as them li'l white legs of yours'll carry
you!"

She surprises him and agrees to having breakfast and then they go up to
his room where he explains his proposed arrangement in detail there.
Despite her misgivings, she accepts his proposal because it means
security for her daughter and a roof over both their heads once more.

I love the description of how he sees her on their second meeting, when
Luc follows her to her home with the intention of asking her to marry
him in exchange for money:

So pale. She looked as if she'd never seen the sun but it wasn't the
pallor of illness, rather the translucent fairness of a true blonde.
Like his mother's skin had been. Peaches and cream, that's how Gran'pere
had described it. Peaches and cream and sugar and spice and everything
nice, that's what she is, he was sure of it, and why was he thinking
such stupid and poetic things? Why didn't he just get on with it?

Moments later, he is trying to ask her to pose as his wife, but instead, he opens the mouth and says this:

"I've a problem, Mrs. Richmond." Still having no idea how to tell her,
Luc said the first thing that came into his mind. "I need a woman and I
think you're the one I've been looking for!"

I couldn’t stop laughing … this scene was so funny!

Another funny scene in Bargain With Lucifer
is when Julie thinks Luc wants her just for sex, when he asks her to
marry him. It is too much dialog to be added here, so I will recommend
you read it. You will burst into laughter like I did, I’m sure.

In Louisiana, Julie finds Luc’s brother, Michel, and his sister-in-law,
Clarice. She is a former lover of Luc's who didn’t want to admit that
what was between them ended long time ago.

Julie starts to have
feelings for Luc, experiencing sexual desire for the first time. Her
former husband was studying to be a priest when he took up with Julie,
blaming her for entrapping him in a marriage he didn't want.

He turned to drink feeling he betrayed God by leaving the church and
marrying her. The night he died, his blood alcohol level was lethal. If
the accident hadn't killed him, the cardiac arrest brought on by alcohol
poisoning would have.

Now Julie blooms under Luc's attentions.
They couple and she finds herself pregnant, which puts herself and her
unborn baby at risk. Years ago when she had Merry, her blood and the
baby's were incompatible but her husband wouldn’t allow her to take the
Rho-Gam injection so she could bear another child. So now her body could
potentially treat this baby like an infection if the fetus has a
different type of blood.

When Julie started to bleed, the whole
situation changes. Luc realizes that he is in love with her; however,
with the problems she is having they can’t make love and one night,
thinking Clarice is Julie, he sleeps with her. And she gets pregnant
too!

I liked the story, although I prefer the first part to the
second. However, it’s a good read for those who like a contemporary
romance. I give it 4 stars.